Pete Theisinger

Peter C. Theisinger served as the first project manager of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. MSL landed the car-sized rover Curiosity on Mars in August 2012 and it has been exploring Gale Crater ever since. Theisinger also returned to project management duties from 2009 until shortly after the Mars landing.

Theisinger's career at JPL began in 1967 with the Mariner 5 mission to Venus and now includes contributions to missions including the Voyager mission to the outer planets (launched in 1977 and still going) and the Galileo mission to Jupiter (launched in 1989 and concluded in 2003). His Mars experience dates back to the 1971 Mariner 9 orbiter mission to Mars.